| Private Dancer | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Tina Turner | ||||
| Released | 29 May 1984 | |||
| Recorded | 1983–1984 | |||
| Genre | Pop, R&B, rock, soul, New Wave | |||
| Length | 44:02 | |||
| Label | Capitol | |||
| Producer | Terry Britten John Carter Leon "Ndugu" Chancler Wilton Felder Rupert Hine Joe Sample Greg Walsh Martyn Ware |
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| Tina Turner chronology | ||||
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| Alternative cover | ||||
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Original U.S. cover art
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| Singles from Private Dancer | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
| Rolling Stone | [2] |
| Robert Christgau | A-[3] |
Private Dancer is the fifth solo album by Tina Turner, released on Capitol Records in 1984, which became her breakthrough solo album. Turner's success with the album came after several challenging years of going solo after a public divorce from husband and performing partner Ike Turner. It is her best-selling album both in the U.S. and internationally and propelled her back to superstardom during the year of its release.
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The album was an outstanding success. Private Dancer has been certified 5 × Platinum (5 million[4]) in the United States and sold around 250,000 each week for 2 months. Worldwide the album has been estimated to have sold over 20 million copies.[5]
The album produced a number of highly successful singles including "What's Love Got to Do with It" which went to number one and stayed there for three weeks. At the 1985 Grammy Awards, Private Dancer won four of the six awards for which it was nominated. No less than seven of the album's ten tracks (nine in the U.S.) were released as singles; "Let's Stay Together" produced by Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh of British band Heaven 17, a UK Top 10 hit and a US Top 20 hit and the first sign of what was to come (1983), "Help" recorded with The Crusaders, Graham Lyle and Terry Britten's reggae-tinged "What's Love Got to Do with It", Holly Knight and Mike Chapman's "Better Be Good to Me", Mark Knopfler's "Private Dancer" with a guitar solo by Jeff Beck (1984) and "I Can't Stand the Rain" and "Show Some Respect" (1985). The preceding UK single "Ball of Confusion", a cover of The Temptations song which was Turner's first collaboration with the B.E.F. (British Electric Foundation)/Heaven 17 production team and part of their collaborative 1982 album Music of Quality and Distinction Volume One was not included on the Private Dancer album. A recording of Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" from the same sessions would re-appear in remixed form on B.E.F.'s Music of Quality and Distinction Volume Two in 1991, and Turner also performed the track with this arrangement on her 1986/1987 Break Every Rule Tour, and it was later included on her 1988 live album Tina Live in Europe.
The Private Dancer album was a radical departure from the R&B and soul music Turner had performed with her former husband. The songs reflected a more straightforward rock sensibility, but mixed in elements of pop, R&B, and New Wave music and the album had an overall soundscape with prominent use of synthesizers and drum machines, especially on the tracks produced by Martyn Ware, Graham Lyle, Terry Britten and Rupert Hine.
Following the success of Private Dancer, Turner released four further singles in 1984 and 1985, the first a duet with David Bowie called "Tonight" from his album of the same name, another duet in 1985 with Bryan Adams called "It's Only Love" taken from Adams' 1984 album Reckless, followed by two tracks in 1985 from the soundtrack album to the film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in which Turner starred against Mel Gibson; "We Don't Need Another Hero" and "One of the Living". This meant that Turner within the space of some eighteen months had managed to release no less than eleven singles altogether - all commercially successful.
In 1997, EMI, the parent label of Capitol Records, released a digitally remastered Centenary Edition of the Private Dancer album on CD, then including four additional demo tracks recorded in late 1983 and early 1984 with the producer John Carter, first released as B-sides to some of the Private Dancer singles, as well as three extended 12" remixes. The album remains the only Tina Turner studio album to have been re-issued in digitally remastered form.
The critical reviews of the album were ecstatic. The New York Times declared that the album was a "landmark" in the "evolution of pop-soul music." The Los Angeles Times claimed her voice was so hot it "melts vinyl."
In 1989, the album was ranked #46 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 100 Greatest Albums of the '80s. In 2003, the TV network VH1 named Private Dancer the 95th greatest album of all time.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "I Might Have Been Queen" | Jeanette Obstoj, Rupert Hine, Jamie West-Oram | 4:10 |
| 2. | "What's Love Got to Do with It" | Terry Britten, Graham Lyle | 3:49 |
| 3. | "Show Some Respect" | Britten, Sue Shifrin | 3:18 |
| 4. | "I Can't Stand the Rain" | Ann Peebles, Don Bryant, Bernard Miller | 3:41 |
| 5. | "Private Dancer" | Mark Knopfler | 7:11 |
| 6. | "Let's Stay Together" | Willie Mitchell, Al Green, Al Jackson, Jr. | 5:16 |
| 7. | "Better Be Good to Me" | Holly Knight, Nicky Chinn, Mike Chapman | 5:10 |
| 8. | "Steel Claw" | Paul Brady | 3:48 |
| 9. | "Help!" | John Lennon, Paul McCartney | 4:30 |
| 10. | "1984" | David Bowie | 3:09 |
| Centenary Edition bonus tracks | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length | ||||||
| 11. | "I Wrote a Letter" | Inga Rumpf | 3:24 | ||||||
| 12. | "Rock 'n Roll Widow" | Tom Snow | 4:45 | ||||||
| 13. | "Don't Rush the Good Things" | Neil Gammack | 3:46 | ||||||
| 14. | "When I Was Young" | Eric Burdon, Victor Briggs, John Weider, Danny McCulloch | 3:11 | ||||||
| 15. | "What's Love Got to Do with It" (Extended 12" Remix) | Britten, Lyle | 5:48 | ||||||
| 16. | "Better Be Good to Me" (Extended 12" Remix) | Knight, Chinn, Chapman | 7:03 | ||||||
| 17. | "I Can't Stand the Rain" (Extended 12" Remix) | Peebles, Bryant, Miller | 5:45 | ||||||
| Original U.S. version | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length | ||||||
| 1. | "I Might Have Been Queen" | Hine, Obstoj | 4:10 | ||||||
| 2. | "What's Love Got to Do with It" | Britten, Lyle | 3:49 | ||||||
| 3. | "Show Some Respect" | Britten, Shifrin | 3:18 | ||||||
| 4. | "I Can't Stand the Rain" | Bryant, Miller, Peebles | 3:41 | ||||||
| 5. | "Better Be Good to Me" | Chapman, Chinn, Knight | 5:10 | ||||||
| 6. | "Let's Stay Together" | Green, Jackson, Mitchell | 5:16 | ||||||
| 7. | "1984" | Bowie | 3:09 | ||||||
| 8. | "Steel Claw" | Brady | 3:48 | ||||||
| 9. | "Private Dancer" | Knopfler | 7:11 | ||||||
| Title | Single(s) |
|---|---|
| "I Wrote a Letter" | "Let's Stay Together" |
| "Rock 'n Roll Widow" | "Help!" |
| "Don't Rush the Good Things" | "What's Love Got to Do with It" |
| "When I Was Young" | "Better Be Good to Me" |
| "Keep Your Hands Off My Baby" | "Private Dancer" |
| "Let's Pretend We're Married" (Live) | "I Can't Stand the Rain" and "Show Some Respect" |
| Chart (1984) | Position |
|---|---|
| Austrian Albums Chart | 1 |
| US R&B Albums | 1 |
| Canadian Albums Chart | 2 |
| Dutch Albums Chart | 2 |
| German Albums Chart | 2 |
| New Zealand Albums Chart | 2 |
| UK Albums Chart | 2 |
| Swiss Albums Chart | 3 |
| US Billboard 200 | 3 |
| Norweigen Albums Chart | 5 |
| Swedish Albums Chart | 7 |
Billboard (North America)
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1984 | "Better Be Good to Me" | Hot Dance Music/Club Play | 16 |
| 1984 | "Better Be Good to Me" | Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks | 6 |
| 1984 | "Better Be Good to Me" | Mainstream Rock Tracks | 32 |
| 1984 | "Better Be Good to Me" | Billboard Hot 100 | 5 |
| 1984 | "Let's Stay Together" | Hot Dance Music/Club Play | 1 |
| 1984 | "Let's Stay Together" | Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks | 3 |
| 1984 | "Let's Stay Together" | Billboard Hot 100 | 26 |
| 1984 | "What's Love Got to Do with It?" | Adult Contemporary | 8 |
| 1984 | "What's Love Got to Do with It?" | Hot Dance Music/Club Play | 21 |
| 1984 | "What's Love Got to Do with It?" | Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks | 2 |
| 1984 | "What's Love Got to Do with It?" | Billboard Hot 100 | 1 |
| 1985 | "Private Dancer" | Adult Contemporary | 30 |
| 1985 | "Private Dancer" | Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks | 3 |
| 1985 | "Private Dancer" | Billboard Hot 100 | 7 |
| 1985 | "Show Some Respect" | Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks | 50 |
| 1985 | "Show Some Respect" | Billboard Hot 100 | 37 |
| Year | Winner | Category |
|---|---|---|
| 1985 | "Better Be Good to Me" | Best Female Rock Vocal Performance |
| 1985 | "What's Love Got to Do with It?" | Best Female Pop Vocal Performance |
| 1985 | "What's Love Got to Do with It?" | Record of the Year |
| 1985 | "What's Love Got to Do with It?" | Song of the Year |
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